Innholdsfortegnelse for February 14, 2024 i The Hollywood Reporter

Not long after he returned as Disney’s CEO in late 2022, Bob Iger sat down with Josh D’Amaro, Disney’s head of parks and experiences, and Sean Shoptaw, the company’s head of games, to be briefed about the media habits of young consumers. “The first thing they showed me were the demographic trends,” Iger recalled, speaking to Wall Street analysts Feb. 7. “When I saw Gen Z and Gen Alpha and even millennials, and I saw the amount of time they were spending in terms of their total media screen time on video games, it was stunning to me, equal to what they spend on TV and movies.” The conclusion he reached: “We have to be there, and we have to be there as soon as we possibly can in a…

Hollywood loves a good makeover, and a new one has just been unveiled in the 90210 — to the tune of $52 million. Saks Fifth Avenue’s gleaming new women’s store is now open for business, located inside the old Barneys New York space at 9570 Wilshire Blvd., marking a comeback for the building, which has sat empty since the retailer went bankrupt in 2019, shocking longtime industry fans who flocked there for designer duds and power lunches at Barney Greengrass. Most of the old Barneys was gutted, but two signature architecture details were preserved: the Regency-style marble staircase and the building’s enormous skylight. “We’ve really left the centerpiece of the building untouched,” says John Antonini, Saks vp, director of stores, adding that “Los Angeles for us is, after New York…

The stars hit the Strip over the weekend, taking in the Kansas City Chiefs-San Francisco 49ers showdown at Allegiant Stadium (which the Chiefs won, 25-22) and partying at celebrations across Sin City. This year’s Super Bowl had an extra dose of star power from the players’ significant others, with Taylor Swift — and an entourage that included Blake Lively, Ice Spice and Keleigh and Miles Teller — cheering on boyfriend Travis Kelce, of the Chiefs, and Olivia Culpo on the other side rooting for 49ers running back fiancé Christian McCaffrey. In the lead-up to the big game — and a show-stopping halftime performance from Usher — A-listers also mingled at parties thrown by Fanatics, Guy Fieri, Shaquille O’Neal, Rob Gronkowski and The h.wood Group, marking a successful turnout for the…

Hayao Miyazaki’s decades-long producer Toshio Suzuki — also cofounder and president of the animation icon’s Japan-based Studio Ghibli — admits that even he was surprised when Miyazaki, now 83, reached out to him in 2016 to say that he wanted to make another movie. “It was only three years after he announced his retirement, and at that time, I honestly believed that we wouldn’t be making any more films together,” says Suzuki, who spoke with The Hollywood Reporter with the help of an interpreter. “[Miyazaki] said that because ‘I found it quite embarrassing to come back after announcing that I’ll be retiring, I won’t be showing myself in public.’ ” Months later, Suzuki received storyboards representing about 20 minutes of what would become The Boy and the Heron and spent…

On Oct. 21, 2021, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, then 24, arrived at the Bonanza Creek Ranch just south of Santa Fe, New Mexico, an hour or so before sunrise and reported to her job as the armorer and props assistant on the set of the low-budget indie Western Rust. She took a COVID test, swung by the catering tent and headed to the prop truck to prepare weapons the cast would need that day, including Alec Baldwin’s gun, a long Colt .45 revolver, which she loaded with what she has said she thought were dummy rounds. When first assistant director Dave Halls called for Gutierrez-Reed on a walkie-talkie, she walked to a church set on the edge of the ranch’s mock Western town and approached Halls, seated in a pew with director…

MICHAEL PHILLIPS — PRODUCER of The Sting, Taxi Driver and Close Encounters of the Third Kind — learned in early January 2023 that a Buddha sculpture he owned was plundered. An anonymous online activist collective, Lost Arts of Nepal, had publicized a previously published photo of the object, residing on a low glass table in his Beverly Hills living room, alongside another, older picture revealing it ensconced at the base of a temple monument in Bungamati, a town in the Kathmandu Valley known worldwide for its ancient culture. “FAITH STOLEN,” the group announced on social media: “LOOTED GODS.” “It was a sad shock,” Phillips recalls of the revelation. He’d purchased the piece more than a decade earlier from Swiss dealers based in New York. “I was enjoying living with it.…

Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo’s FX/Hulu take on James Clavell’s Shōgun is less a reinvention and more a considered excavation of the 1975 best-seller. Although there are shifts in focus and adjustments that reflect an evolved cultural understanding, this Shōgun hews pretty closely to the novel. The resulting series is big, visually bold and beautiful, but a bit bloodless. On the page and in the 1980 Richard Chamberlain miniseries, Shōgun put history and romance on equal footing. This Shōgun is more a game of political chess. The action and Machiavellian machinations are consistently gripping, while the love story is too truncated to make an emotional dent. The tale begins in 1600 as a ship with a dozen emaciated sailors slinks into a Japanese harbor town. One of the crew is…

Lustig The Quick Pitch Pedigreed chef Bernhard Mairinger, whose modern-Austrian restaurant BierBeisl was a cult favorite among Beverly Hills-centric industry execs and countryman Wolfgang Puck, has spent the past decade mostly on the private-chef circuit; now he’s back with this instantly busy, hyper-refined and more personal creative vision in Culver City. Mairinger has resurrected his veal wiener schnitzel, yet he’s mostly off in new, invariably askew directions. Find him in the chicken liver profiteroles complemented by hints of dark chocolate and riesling. Or the spelt-sourdough flatbread topped in raclette and housemade pickled vegetables. Or (yes, please) the apple strudel sorbet. 3273 Helms Ave.…

When Intuit Dome — the new Inglewood home of the Los Angeles Clippers that billionaire owner Steve Ballmer has spent upward of $2 billion constructing — opens in August, it will unveil not only a state-of-the-art sports and concert venue, but also a high-end VIP club. The Lexus Courtside Lounge — available to those with courtside seats — is being designed by London-based interior designer Rita Konig, who was also behind the look of the Hollywood-loved private members’ club San Vicente Bungalows. Gillian Zucker, president of business operations for the Clippers, says that when looking to create the arena’s courtside experience, they were inspired by the energy of the Bungalows, which is “so L.A.-vibey, and at the same time it’s comfortable. You just feel like you’re at home, or at…

Oct. 6, 2021 Production starts on Rust. Oct. 21 The shooting occurs. DP Halyna Hutchins is killed. Feb. 15, 2022 Hutchins’ widower files a wrongful death lawsuit against producers. Aug. 3 Santa Fe DA Mary Carmack-Altwies appoints Republican legislative candidate Andrea Reeb as special prosecutor. Oct. 5 Hutchins’ widower reaches a settlement with producers. Jan. 19, 2023 Prosecutor files involuntary manslaughter charges against Alec Baldwin and Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. Feb. 9 Hutchins’ parents and sister, who live in Ukraine, file a lawsuit against Baldwin, Gutierrez-Reed, first AD Dave Halls and the film’s producers. Feb. 20 DA dismisses gun enhancement charges against Baldwin and Gutierrez-Reed, crimes that would have carried a five-year sentence. Feb. 23 Rust producers reach a settlement with the state of New Mexico. They will be fined $100,000. March…

One joy of awards season is that it brings together a class of nominees whose paths may or may not have crossed before they were anointed Oscar darlings. Remember when Bradley Cooper and Ryan Gosling had one scene together in The Place Beyond the Pines? Or when Jodie Foster directed Robert Downey Jr. in the Thanksgiving comedy Home for the Holidays? How about Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s three-episode arc on This Is Us, the show that turned Sterling K. Brown into a major star? If you want to impress people with your knowledge of semi-obscure celebrity connections, we’ve drawn up a handy map that links this year’s nominated actors’ résumés.…

With a range of work that includes classics from Rocky to Raging Bull and an estimated 600 episodes of Star Trek, makeup artist Michael Westmore will be among the special honorees at the upcoming 11th annual Make-Up Artists & Hair Stylists Guild (IATSE Local 706) Awards. He’s an Oscar winner for 1985’s Mask and has earned an astonishing 45 Emmy nominations, including nine wins. In advance of the Feb. 18 ceremony at The Beverly Hilton, where Westmore will accept the guild’s Vanguard Award, the makeup pro talks with THR about a range of subjects, including working with Sylvester Stallone and the late Carl Weathers on Rocky, creating Vulcans and Klingons for the Star Trek universe and musings on the potential impact of artificial intelligence on his art. What do you…

1. Nimona leads the feature competition. All five Oscar nominees for best animated feature have multiple Annie noms, including Nimona with nine. 2. There are two other Annie nominees in the Oscar race: Short War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Annie-nominated for character animation, a VFX contender. 3. The Winsor McCay Award for career achievement will go to animator and director Charlotte “Lotte” Reiniger (1926’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed, posthumous), Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi, and National Film Board animator and producer Marcy Page. 4. “The Artists of Walt Disney Animation” will be honored with a special achevement award. The June Foray Award for charitable impact will be presented to BRIC Foundation (Break, Reinvent, Impact, Change) co-founders Alison Mann…

It’s the 30-story elephant on the L.A. skyline — and seemingly no one, including Mayor Karen Bass, has decided what to do about it. The Oceanwide Plaza luxury development has stood next to Crypto.com Arena vacant and half-finished since 2019, when its Chinese developer, having already spent $1.1 billion on it, ran out of money. In December, three L.A. taggers — Akua, Sour and Castle — broke into the highest of Oceanwide’s three towers and spray-painted their names across its floor-to-ceiling windows. The daring stunt served as a bat signal to the rest of L.A.’s graffiti community, including prolific tagger Endem, who dreamed of seeing his own name in 13-foot-tall block letters adorning the building. “A lot of people were actually hitting me up on Instagram,” says Endem. “Like, ‘What’s…

When Kathryn Newton arrived at the New Orleans set of Lisa Frankenstein in summer 2022, a COVID scare was rippling through the cast. Protocol required director Zelda Williams — making her feature debut — to work from a van for the first week, leaving Newton to make some very big decisions. The new horror comedy follows the titular Lisa (the title is a riff on the psychedelic kids product line Lisa Frank) as she trans-forms from wallflower to high school revenge seeker and falls in love with a corpse (Cole Sprouse) that’s been brought back to life. “When I read Diablo [Cody]’s script, I thought Lisa was this quiet girl, but as soon as I started doing a scene, I realized that the camera is on me and no one…

James Woods’ Nuclear Secrets By Christopher Nolan’s standards, Oppenheimer couldn’t be a more straightforward narrative. Scientist builds bomb. Bomb ends war. Government betrays scientist. But there is one part of the movie that has some viewers scratching their heads, and it’s right there in the opening credits: What the heck is James Woods’ name doing on the screen? The 76-year-old actor, best known today for his right-wing conspiracy mongering, is listed as an executive producer. But as far as anyone can tell, he had no part in making the film, never met with Nolan and wouldn’t know a neutron reflector from a People’s Choice Award. So, how’d he nab an EP credit? Woods, it turns out, is pals with businessman J. David Wargo, a onetime Discovery board member and longtime…

Weddings Jeffrey Greenstein, president of Millennium Media, married actor Salomé Chandler on Nov. 11 at the Isla Bella Beach Resort in Marathon, Florida. Births Andy Weil, vp original series at Netflix, and Eva Dickerman, a partner at Range Media Partners, welcomed Harry Daniel Weil on Jan. 12 at Cedars-Sinai. Congrats Longtime Amblin Partners executive Mia Maniscalco was tapped as president of Gary Dauberman’s Coin Operated production banner Feb. 9. Laura Delahaye was named head of domestic television at New Regency on Feb. 6. Elan Gale’s TheYearOfElan Productions hired Bill Dixon as head of creative and development and upped Laura Citren to vp development and Tessa Stewart to director of development Feb. 8. Gemma Levinson was named vp development for Nick Antosca’s Eat the Cat production company Feb. 5. Simon Hurdon…

This year’s Academy Award nominees for best original song include previous winners — Billie Eilish/Finneas, Jon Batiste, Mark Ronson/Andrew Wyatt — and a songwriter with a record-making 15th nomination, honorary Oscar recipient Diane Warren. The fifth nominee? An Osage Nation tribal member who works as a housing director accommodating low-income Native Americans and is also a skilled musician who has spent 40 years performing Osage ceremonial dances. Scott George scored a nom for composing “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People),” a beautiful drum-filled, six-minute-plus chant from Apple’s Killers of the Flower Moon. George holds the title of “head singer” in his tribe and was brought on as a music consultant for Killers, which follows the systematic assassinations of the Osage people in the 1920s by white settlers to take control…

On the heels of Sam Esmail’s apocalyptic thriller Leave the World Behind and December news reports that Mark Zuckerberg is constructing a 5,000-square-foot bunker under his Kauai ranch, the business of fortified shelters is booming. Adding more fuel to the flames: escalating armed conflict around the globe and, closer to home, the ongoing onslaught of mass shootings and an increasingly fractious political landscape. The one-percenters who can afford to pull out all the stops for self-preservation are doing so more than ever — often in a fashion that goes way beyond the submerged corrugated metal units seen on reality shows like Nat Geo’s Doomsday Preppers. Aiming to protect themselves from potential threats including civil unrest, cyberattacks, nuclear bombing, power grid failure and drastic climate-change events, many work directly with general…

Drinking through “another night of German-occupied misery,” as his friend puts it, Cristóbal Balenciaga (Nuno Lopes) reflects on what’s to come. “Some day this will all be over,” he says. “And right now, you must ask yourself: When it is, will you be able to live with what you’ve done?” Apple TV+’s The New Look introduces itself as a chronicle of a watershed moment in French haute couture when, as a title card loftily informs us, “creation helped return spirit and life to the world” in the wake of World War II. But the series proves less persuasive as a lesson in art or history than as a bittersweet reflection on choice, illuminated through two rivals cutting wildly different paths through the era: Christian Dior (Ben Mendelsohn) and Coco Chanel…

Twenty years ago, the team behind The Notebook had no idea it would become a beloved romantic film that fans wouldn’t soon forget. Based on Nicholas Sparks’ debut 1996 novel of the same name, Nick Cassavetes’ feature centers on an elderly man (James Garner) in a nursing home reading a story to an Alzheimer’s patient (Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes’ mom) about a couple in the 1940s — Noah and Allie, played by Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams — who fall in love despite class differences. New Line was open to casting less-established leads, making an early-career Gosling the easy choice. Finding his female counterpart was tougher, and producers agreed to read McAdams, perhaps best known for the Rob Schneider comedy The Hot Chick. Other on-therise actresses were in the mix, including…